Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Richard Carmona denied allegations from a former colleague that he pounded angrily on her door in the middle of the night, and called on his Republican opponent, Congressman Jeff Flake, to stop airing a “deplorable” ad featuring the accusation.

Rep. Chester Crandell said he was surprised when the first question of the Oct. 2 Clean Elections debate of Legislative District 6 candidates was on Proposition 120, the ballot measure he sponsored and is advocating.

Republican Rep. Carl Seel started making waves during his few first months in office in 2009 when he walked off the House floor during a speech by Gov. Jan Brewer because she was pushing a one-cent sales tax increase.

Not since the AzScam scandal in 1991 have so many Arizona lawmakers left office amid criminal allegations in a single year.

The current scandals could cast a cloud over the state’s general election. Lawmakers who leave in disgrace tend to discourage cynical voters from going to the polls, pollsters and players from the AzScam bribery scandal said.

Proponents of the initiative to permanently keep a 1-cent sales tax hike are aggressively pushing back against the charge that it’s conceived and drafted by “special interests” that will reap the benefits if voters approved the measure this November.